The Vanderbilt Political Review
At Vanderbilt, there are close to half-a-million extracurricular activities in which you can get involved. These include religious groups, service groups, cultural group, intermural sports, and so many others. One group with which I have been active for several years is the Vanderbilt Political Review. We are a non-partisan group that publishes an academic journal (now three times a year!) with politically-themed articles and interviews with political leaders. We also have a website where our editors post monthly articles on political topics of interest to them.
Because of my former leadership positions in the organization (2 years as Treasurer, and a brief period as Vice-President during a transitional period), I was asked by the current board to take over the Managing Editor position this semester when the other Managing Editor went abroad. This has meant being more heavily involved in the production of the journal itself. For instance, in addition to writing an article on School Vouchers, I worked with other Executive Board members to edit the essays and help the authors improve their content. We then passed the articles on to the Layout Team, who gets to put their artistic touches on the journal. Here’s a link to the final version, which is currently out on newsstands!
My favorite thing about VPR is the way I feel we are able to stimulate political conversation on campus without being divisive. While authors may take a specific opinion, the journal itself aims to be balanced, and will represent the views of any student who chooses to write for us. VPR will be taking applications for new members in the Fall, and we are always looking for submissions for our website if you want to get involved in the future!
Ultimately, Vanderbilt has a fantastic array of groups to join and they are often some of the most fun things you will do on campus. I have made some great friends from my experience with VPR, and have learned so much from them. Definitely try to join something new when you get to college (or even in high school). I had never written political articles before VPR, and now I can’t get enough!